clouds threatening and then the sun breaking through to bake anything sitting out in the open, they managed to turn one of the biggest — if not THE biggest — town meeting in state history into something that had an almost intimate feeling to it.

Nearly 3,800 voters spread themselves across the high school athletic fields and took on the casino question themselves, without a lot of speeches from consultants, and without a lot of obvious outside pressure one way or the other.

They sat for hours in the broiling sun, many beneath beach umbrellas, armed with coolers, sunscreen and a point of view. And they kept the whole thing in the family, and within the law, all with the help of perhaps 200 uniformed police officers and sheriffs' deputies from almost every town within 40 miles of the place.

Duxbury, Hull, Malden, Brockton, Barnstable County, you name it, it was represented by a badge well before the first voters were checked in at 8 a.m. Plymouth County brought its communications truck, complete with 50-foot aerial boom with video camera to keep the peace and record any riots that might break out, or protesters that might break in.

Any lightness of mood produced by 40-year-old Top 10 hits on the PA system was doused by the Homeland Security feel of the security forces, who had all the toys, including all-terrain vehicles for riding around on, one of which is actually a tiny fire truck.

Someone said there were 60 police dogs — "K-9 units" — behind the blacked-out glass of idling cruisers, ready for — what, exactly? The perimeter of the high school property was ringed by cruisers parked every 50 feet, successfully thwarting any attempt to influence the vote by troublemakers sneaking in via the dense underbrush.

The only message from the outside world that managed to penetrate security was a Piper Cub airplane that appeared from behind the trees precisely at the 11 a.m. start of the meeting, towing a "NO CASINO" banner and circling overhead for an hour after the cheers and jeers died down.

Back on terra firma, miles of yellow police tape were deployed on the high school grounds, to channel voters into the tents and onto the fields, and, lest anyone forget, to channel the media into a "free speech zone" isolated on a grassy knoll more than 100 feet away from the nearest voter, and guarded by a dozen scowling officers along with a dog or two.

A sandwich board near a gap in the perimeter informed voters that they could venture into the corral of interview-starved journalists, and a few did, early on at least, staging at least one nose-to-nose shouting match between casino proponents and opponents. But otherwise, voters were spared the annoyance of having journalists roam through the meeting looking for comments. In return, the journalists got to hear — before the vote, that is — from only some of the most committed partisans on the issue.

There were charges of unfairness. One man complained that the turnout, being far short of predictions, was a sign that the few hundred voters in the special tent for elderly and handicapped were just a sample of those who couldn't attend because of the conditions.

Others reminded the voters that they had had only four days to examine the deal they were being offered.

One casino opponent charged that his side's yard signs were being systematically uprooted from private property, and he blamed the police, who sided with the casino backers during the meeting in a speech by Chief Gary Russell.

Another opponent, Richard Young, pointed to Bill Marzelli and his dozens of orange-shirted casino backers and complained that while they were allowed to wear the T-shirts and white hats that read, "Vote YES for Middleborough's future," the police confiscated his side's yellow leaflets, which explained a few opposition talking points. "I'm not allowed to give you anything to read," he said.

Crude as it seemed, the voting system of yellow "yes or no" paper ballots — one for the ballot box, the other for the (monitored) trash, worked smoothly. The actual voting, when it came, took only about 15 minutes. The ballot boxes, purchased at Staples and painted flat black with a square hole cut in the lid, were collected and opened in the hallway near the high school gym, counted by volunteers under police supervision, and the results announced in just half an hour. No muss, no fuss.

That was less time than it took to herd the whole assemblage around the field, earlier in the meeting, laboriously counting them to make sure that two-thirds or more of them wanted to end the debate and get the casino contract voted on.

It was a snag deliberately introduced by a parliamentary maneuver; but not only did it delay the inevitable, but foreshadowed the final casino vote by registering a two-thirds margin.

Few voters actually heard the results announced first-hand. The crowd had dwindled to perhaps 250 by the time Town Moderator James Thomas delivered the news, and at that point anybody who wanted could watch the contract signing ceremony that was hastily arranged near the portable stage.

Everyone else was back on the buses to the parking lots, back to their lives that, for better or worse, may never be the same again.